Truer Lies
by lovely rubber boots
Summary: A lie had never been so true. Sort of. And poorly laid plans had never gone so well. Sort of. Lucy, Louis, Rose/Scoripus, James, other weasleys, other teachers. Mystery, romance, humor, treachery and a darn good time.


**Truer Lies**

**by: Lovelyrubberboots**

**Disclaimer: if you recognize it I don't own it.****.**

**Thanks in advance for reveiws!**

* * *

"I just don't understand Lucy," Rose said, crossing her arms, perplexed. Outside the train window the snowy landscape was whooshing by. The train was fairly empty, compared to most Winter Breaks, and Rose and Scoripus had been lucky to grab a cabin all to themselves. To themselves, that was, until Louis popped in, claiming to be unable to find seating. She suspected one of her cousins had put him up to it, but she didn't quite know who. So, instead of the conversation (or lack thereof) that Rose had planned for Scorpius they'd turned to the latest Hogwarts gossip.

There was the totally unsurprising news that Jack Anderson had been caught sneaking back from Hogsmeade at two in the morning, and the news that Lysander Scamander had apparently corrected Professor Sinastra rather rudely, but he'd been forgiven because he was right. A few other bits of news were discussed until Scorpius brought their attention to a bit of news that had escaped the ears of most non-Slytherins. Lucy Weasley had been asked out by Ben Nott and turned him down. That she'd been asked out by him was not surprising to anyone in the cabin, but that she'd turned him down as, to Rose and Scoripus exceptionally interesting. Scorpius reasoned out the situation best:

"Quite obviously they were meant for each other. They spend every moment that she's not busy being head girl together, and they have too many common interests to count. Plus they've been friends forever. I thought they'd be married by now, honestly,"

But Louis was not surprised. He just shook his head sadly at his cousin and her boyfriend. They were so naïve, and for once it wasn't because they were just fourth years. It was because, for once in her life Lucy hadn't told the entire world what was on her mind. And, for once, Louis Weasley had kept a secret.

"Scoripus – leave," Louis said, no longer willing to keep Lucy's secret.

Scorpius protested, as did Rose, but eventually Scorpius was pushed out of the cabin (literally) and sent on his way to find a new place to sit for a while. In a vague attempt to make him feel better, Louis had told him it was nothing personal and there'd almost certainly be time for him to see Rose before the end of the ride.

"Well, what do you know?" Rose was not impressed. Her arms were crossed and she had an expression worthy of her mother plastered on her face. It was clear that she regarded this merely as an attempt to get rid of Scorpius, and much to her displeasure it had worked.

"I know a lot, Rose, and I'm going to tell you all I know, about this anyway," he said, "But you can't tell anyone. And you can't tell Lucy I told you, because Lucy will kill me."

"Fine," Rose rolled her eyes. If anything it would be a good story.

"It started in our first year. Lucy and I met up after charms one day to explore the castle. Actually, we were following around Victoire. Stalking her really – it was a bit creepy. And we were on the seventh floor – I'm sure you know where this is going – when Victoire caught onto the fact that we were following her. We needed a place to hide (she started chasing us, you see) and we came across a door we went in. It was the Room of Requirement – can you believe we found out about it faster than James did? Well, anyway, we decided to start meeting there on a regular basis, because we couldn't meet up easily. I had just been put in Ravenclaw and she was in Slytherin, plus we both thought we were just too cool to be seen with each other too much.

"So that's where we've been disappearing to every Thursday evening. James figured it out with the Maurauders map, I think. Anyway, one night we were there and we'd just run into Paul Longbottom. It was during our third year. We were going up there and he told us to get out of the area, because his dad was coming. So we just ran into the room, since we were right there and planning on going in anyway… and that's when it happened."

* * *

"That was close!" I laughed, leaning up against a wall in the dimly lit room, holding my chest dramatically. I wasn't out of breath, and neither was Lucy, but she joined in the dramatics. We stood against the wall for a few moments before Lucy sighed.

"I love Paul," she said leaning against the wall. I smile and nodded vigorously.

"Me too," I agreed. I recall that there was a pause – a long one.

"No, I really love Paul," she said, deathly serious. We didn't really talk much that night and I didn't bring it up again, until the summer when we were alone at her house.

"Lucy," I asked, "When you said you really loved Paul, you meant as a friend, right?"

She didn't say anything, but I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't love him just as a friend.

* * *

"Why are you telling me this?" Rose interrupted.

"Because you wanted to understand why Lucy turned down Ben," Louis told her simply.

"You could have just told me that she was interested in someone else; you didn't have to tell me Lucy's deepest and darkest secret,"

Louis laughed, which annoyed Rose. She really, really hated being left in the dark,

"First of all, being in love is not a dark secret… most of the time. And trust me when I tell you it's not Lucy's deepest secret. I know for a fact there are things she hasn't even told me," Louis could be quite literal when he wished. Normally this wouldn't have bothered Rose, but she was already in a slightly foul mood. "Rose, for once in your life just listen and enjoy the story without interrupting. Maybe at the end I'll tell you what you're supposed to learn from it,"

"I think I'll be able to figure that out on my own," she responded.

"Whatever. Can I keep going?" Louis didn't wait for an answer. "From then on I kind of let it go. I almost forgot about it sometimes, but occasionally when I was bored I would think about it. And those nights I would bring it up in our conversations. Since I asked her about it that summer I think I've asked her about it a dozen times. Every time her answer was that same silence. I knew what it meant. The last time we talked about it was a little over a week ago,"

* * *

It was after one of her hall monitoring shifts, at about one thirty in the morning, or something else like that. Normally, she and Paul don't team up – McGonagall likes to split up the prefectness I guess, but Samantha Irving got sick, so Lucy said she'd fill in.

When she got there I'd been waiting for a while, studying. And she was near tears. I could only tell because I'd seen her cry once before (you know a few years ago when Uncle George and her dad had that fight?). It's weird when she cries, it's like she's starting to laugh. Paul probably thought she was just being silly and laughing out of tiredness.

"He's dating someone. Elise, actually," Lucy laughed and she bit her bottom lip, still nearly laughing.

"Oh –" was all I could say at first, "Do you still…" but I knew the answer. And she just started to cry. Even harder than when her dad and Uncle George had that fight. We were in the room until nearly three in the morning. When she was done crying she went back to Slytherin, and I didn't see her the next day until the afternoon. She was back to her old self for the most part.

I haven't gotten much done this week, and I suspect she hasn't either. Mostly, I've been thinking about her and Paul. It gets to me when she cries like that. And I think I have figured Lucy out, finally. When we were little kids we used to hang out with Paul a lot. One day when we were seven Lucy stopped wanting to be friends with him. She claimed it was cooties. Or something like that. She sort of became friends with him again at Hogwarts, but she'd never been too close to him. I think she's why she does so well in school and plays quidditch and does all the other stuff she does. To avoid him. I think Lucy hates being sleep deprived, and I think that Paul Longbottom is the reason Lucy was in such a foul mood when she made Head Girl, despite the fact that it's been her dream forever.

* * *

Rose sat listening to Louis's story. At first she hadn't believed it. But as he kept talking and explaining, she began to believe there was merit to it. Rose loved school even more than Lucy and even she didn't like to have lots of nights in a row not sleeping. Lucy was always relentlessly happy about everything, except for some Head Girl things. The pieces fell into place easily as Rose thought about it.

The only thing she didn't know was what, exactly, she was supposed to learn from all this.

"So have you figured out the lesson yet?" Louis asked smugly, as though he could read her mind.

Rose didn't want to admit she hadn't.

"Well, Rose, I think if you spend a little more time around Scorpius I think you'll realize that love is like two things. First, it can be a beautiful flower – I hate to use the Herbology images given who we're dealing with, but they work so well. But it can also be a pile of dragon manure. Rotting, festering, but still beautiful because you know something can grow out of it. Right now you're not in the greenhouse, but Lucy's stuck in a huge pile of dragon poo. So keep that in mind when you find yourself in the greenhouse," Louis stood up "Oh, and don't tell anyone what I told you," he started to leave.

"Wait – why didn't Lucy just tell Paul earlier? If she's know for so long?" Rose asked.

"Well, either everything I just told you was a lie, and you've found a huge gaping hole in my story, or if Lucy told Paul she was in love with him he'd go along with it even if he didn't love her back. Because he's Paul," Louis stepped out of the cabin, "if I run into Scorpius I'll send him back,"

Scorpius returned not too much longer, and all speaking in their cabin stopped until they said their good-byes as they got off the train at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. The first member of the Weasley family Rose saw was Aunt Audrey.

"Rosie! Hugo!" Aunt Audrey called out to them (Rose looked behind to see her brother lugging his suitcase towards them, "there's some big goblin delegation at the Ministry today, so I'm taking you two home," their Aunt said, clearly excited about this, "As soon as Lucy gets here, we'll be off on our way. Here, Hugo let me take that," Aunt Audrey, took Hugo's trunk from him. "Ah there she is. Lucy!" Audrey called out, and Lucy headed towards them, giving one last wave to her friend Emily as she joined them. The walk to the car was fairly quiet, except for Audrey telling them how she was excited to hear all about how school was going. Like all of the adults, Aunt Audrey was interested in the children's lives, but her interest was magnified by the fact that, being American, she'd not gone to Hogwarts. She was further interested having only gone to a day school. The community in Massachusetts she'd grown up in was several times the size of Hogsmeade and had it's own magic school. The idea of dorms practically made Aunt Audrey giddy. She'd visited Hogwarts once and had been amazed by it.

Upon reaching the car (Audrey's father had been muggle born and had introduced her to muggle ways, despite living in an all magical town) Lucy attempted to secure the front passenger seat, but Audrey would have none of it. "You're just going to sleep," she reminded her daughter, never one to mince words, "Give Rosie the front,"

Lucy hadn't dared to argue.

The drive back was nice, and Rose stared out the window, not listening to Hugo chattering on about how Hogwarts was going. Audrey kept asking him questions and Hugo loved being able to answer them; it was only his second year and he hadn't yet tired of giving Aunt Audrey every detail of life there. As Hugo continued to talk, Rose found herself deep in thought about what Louis had told her.

* * *

The day of Christmas was a family day. Everyone was crammed into the Burrow, all were happy. Teddy, Victoire, Molly and Molly's finance, Robert, were off talking about their budding careers and young adult lives. James and Dominique were causing trouble (though less trouble than usual, given that it was the Holidays), while Fred, Roxanne, Louis and Lucy were discussing the new Transfiguration teacher (the general agreement amongst them was that he was a very good teacher, if not a little strict – Lucy and Roxanne had also brought up that the man was gorgeous). Rose was playing Exploding Snap with her brother, while trying to ignore Albus as he fretted about an exam they'd taken just before break. Lily was forced to talk with the family about Hogwarts. It was her first year and they were all excited to speak with her; Rose felt a bit sorry for her cousin.

It was a good holiday overall, and much to Rose's delight she'd begun to hatch a plan. The only question was whether or not to involve Louis. It did not take much contemplation decide not to include him.

* * *

The day of the return to Hogwarts made Rose nervous with excitement. Her parents took it as excitement o get back to her studies ("Just like her mother!" her father had laughed heartily in the station, much to Rose's embarrassment). They were travelling with Uncle Harry and his children; Albus was still fussing over the test he'd taken at the end of term. It was much to Rose's relief when her parents spotted Professor Neville and his family and went to go speak with him. With a quick goodbye to her parents she ran off onto the train to get a good seat. Much to her luck, she found one within moments of getting on the train. She was joined by Hugo a second after that, and about fifteen minutes later the train began to roll out of the station.

"Hugo, go away," she told him as soon as they were out of sight of their parents.

"Fine. I didn't want to sit with you anyway," Hugo got up huffily, grabbed his box of Bertie Botts and his book and left.

A few moments later there was a knock on the door, and Lucy slid into the car.

"Hey Rose. Hugo told me you were here – I just need to throw something in his bag," she asked, holding up a strange looking object, "Oh! Don't worry. It's nothing bad," Lucy looked at the strange object, "It's just some wand polish I was holding onto for him," Lucy reached up and grabbed Hugo's bag from the area where he'd stowed it. "You know, I saw Scorpius on my way here. He was looking for you… I think he said he was going to go to the bathroom. If I see him again I'll send him here, I gu-" Lucy was interrupted by the slide of the door again, as Paul (already in his Hogwarts robes) walked in.

"Hi Lucy, Rose. Lucy – I got your letter about wanting to discuss prefect matters?" Paul asked, leaning against the door.

"What?" Lucy asked, putting Hugo's bag back.

"You must have sent it after you had the elf made wine!" Rose offered.

"Oh," Lucy scrunched up her face, "Well, um, I guess we can discuss that. I can't think of what would need to be dealt with, except for the password to the bathroom, but it's your turn to pick it…"

Paul laughed.

"That's ok, although I suppose I ought to be worried you had so much to drink that you forgot you sent me a letter?" he said seemingly mostly joking, "Oh – by the way we got the invitation to your sister's wedding; my mother's very excited for it. The script on the front was lovely – was that your mother or sister who did it?" he asked, referring offhandedly to Lucy's notoriously bad handwriting.

"My dad actually," she replied brightly, "Well, I'm glad you will all be coming. Your dad always was Molly's favorite teacher. I need to get going somewhere though…" she said, quickly dashing out the door before Paul could say anything else. He was about to leave as well, when Rose spoke.

"So… you and Elise?" Rose asked, leaning back in her seat.

Paul went red immediately.

"Oh, um not anymore. We broke up. Things can get a bit complicated, with my dad you know. She was really uncomfortable when she visited over last week. Said she couldn't date me, because she kept thinking about Mandrakes and such," Paul sighed, "shame, I know," he said as the door opened once again and Scorpius walked in.

"I'll just be going now," Paul said awkwardly, leaving the cabin.

* * *

"Paul! Paul!" Rose called out, running down the hallway towards him and a group of other 7th year students. He turned around, upon hearing his name.

"What's the problem?" he asked, concerned. His friends also paused, waiting to hear if their help was needed for whatever situation.

"Lucy needs your help. In the prefect's bathroom. At it, I mean. She, um, forgot the password," Rose said, having forgotten the lie she had been preparing to tell.

"But… it's her cat's name." Paul said, scrunching up his face.

"Oh. Brilliant. I'll just go tell her then," Rose said, running off in the opposite direction to the bathroom. When she got there Lucy was waiting.

"Rose? What's the problem? Albus told me you needed me to meet you here?" Lucy asked, fretfully, clutching her potion's book.

"Oh, nothing, I solved it," Rose blushed and walked swiftly past her cousin, leaving her dumbfounded.

* * *

"What are you looking for Paul?" Rose asked, as innocently as possible.

"Rose?" Paul asked, standing up, and unfortunate move, given that his head was currently under a table in the transfiguration room, "Ow!" he muttered as he hit his head.

"Are you ok?" she asked, a look of fear over her face.

"Yeah, fine," he was rubbing his head, and obviously not okay, "I'm just looking for my potions book. I thought I might have left it here…" his voice trailed off.

"Oh, I found that earlier," Rose smiled, "Gave it to Lucy a bit ago,"

"But I just saw her, and she didn't say anything about it…" Paul's voice trailed off confused, "Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought…?"

* * *

From behind a corner, Rose was listening to her latest attempt to get Lucy and Paul together. So far they had talked about the weather and NEWTs.

"Lucy? I hate to bring this up, but I want to talk to you about something. It's your cousin,"

"Which cousin? I have a lot of them," Lucy responded.

"Rose. I think, well, I think she might have a crush on me. I know she's seeing Scorpius, but lately she seems to be speaking with me quite a lot… Perhaps you could have a word with her? It's making me… Uncomfortable," Paul said, picking his words very carefully, as usual.

"How odd. Well, I suppose I could speak with her,"

* * *

"Louis," Rose said, her face burning red as she approached him in the library, "I…" she paused, her heart pounding, "Louis I did something stupid and I need your help."

"Rose Weasley! You're only fourteen. You and Scorpius shouldn't be-"

"NO!" Rose interrupted, "No, it's about Lucy. Well, after you told me that story I kind of thought about it and I did some things… And I think I may have, um, messed things up. First I made her seem like a forgetful drunk, then I just made her seem like an idiot (myself too, actually), made Lucy sort of seem like a thief, then convinced Paul he had a concussion, and now he thinks that I have some sort of crush on him…" her voice trailed off and she looked away.

"Impressed as I am that you managed to do all that in just two weeks, I'm not impressed that you believed me. Really, Rose, I made it all up."

"But, Louis, it all makes sense!"

"Rose, listen. She's always been motivated and she's always loved getting good grades, not just because she loves learning, but because she loves being the best. And she was only upset when she made head girl because it put Uncle Percy into reminiscing mode – oh, plus I think she might have been a bit hormonal that week," Louis gestured towards his lower stomach and made a face, "Point is, Lucy's not madly in love with Paul. I think the only one Lucy's in love with is her cat. And, possibly herself,"

"Then why'd you tell me that story?" Rose pressed Louis.

"Rosie…" Louis said sympathetically, "Rosie I thought you needed to know something about love, you know? I was thinking about you and Scorpius… and, oh I don't know Rosie. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I didn't think you'd go and make a fool of yourself… Anyway, Lucy. Is. Not. In. Love. With. Paul." Louis finished, gathering up his stuff and pushing out his chair to leave. Without another word (though he did look back) he left he library, leaving a disgruntled Rose standing over a desk.

"Well, for what it's worth," a familiar voice said, "She could have fooled me. I thought she loved him too," Rose spun around; it took her a moment to realize that the voice was coming from the next shelf over. She stepped around the corner to look to see who it was.

"James,"

"I think you're on to something Rose," he said "Meet me tonight at eight in the Room of Requirement,"

* * *

At eight later Rose left the library, where she'd been studying for the last few hours. As she passed the librarian's desk, she stowed her potion's assignment in her bag. The halls were fairly empty, due to a large snowfall during the day. Walking by the windows she could hear people outside yelling and having fun. As she headed up to the room of Requirement she kept hoping James wouldn't forget to meet her because of the snow. There was no doubt in her mind that he was had been out there. Happily, when she got to the room James was already there waiting in a chair.

"Rosie, I have a plan," he said, gesturing to the invisibility cloak he had slumped over the arm of the chair and the piece of parchment on top of it. She didn't know exactly what he had planned, and she knew it'd involved breaking a huge number of school rules (and on a school night too!), but she thought that it just might be worth it.

"Ok. What is it?"

"We're going to wait here until after hours, and then we'll go catch up with Lucy and Paul on their shift (you see, Samantha Irving is sick again)," James started, leaning back in his chair as he explained the rest of his plan. It wasn't a very good one, but (Rose hated to admit it) it was a better plan than all of hers put together. Not that that was difficult.

* * *

At eleven they left the room, map in hand and having just cast charms to conceal their real voices. They'd spoken a bit before leaving the room and Rose was still barely adjusted to her new perky but hoarse voice and James' new voice they was deeper and slightly slower. They weren't perfect, but they sounded reasonably enough like Lucy and Paul. Rose couldn't but to be impressed by this bit of magic on the part of James; it wasn't that she thought he was stupid, but she hadn't expected him to be able to do this.

They were crouched over for most of the time under the cloak, but would take it off when no one appeared to be around. Soon enough they caught up with Lucy and Paul who were checking closets on the second floor.

"All clear here!" Paul said, wiping his hands on her pants.

"Here too… except for the spiders," Lucy made a disgusted face. Paul gave a sympathetic face.

"Third floor now? Or do you want to do the bathrooms on the fourth floor?"

"Let's do the library, actually," Lucy said and they headed off for the stairs, James and Rose fairly close behind them.

"Wait until the signal," James reminded Rose quietly. She rolled her eyes. Obviously she'd wait.

Getting up the stairs was not easy, but they managed fairly well.

"Did you talk to Rose?" Paul asked, and even in the dim light rose could tell she was blushing.

"I'm so sorry – I forgot. Has she been bothering you still?" James looked at Rose and raised his eye brows.

"No, no, not for… a few hours," Paul laughed and Lucy joined in. Silently he walked down on aisle and she down the other. James once again looked at Rose and nodded twice as they followed Paul down his aisle.

"I love you," Rose said, making a horrible face under the cloak. She couldn't' believe what she was doing.

"What was that Paul?" Lucy asked as she scanned the aisles.

"I thought that was you," he replied.

"Nope," Lucy replied, as Rose spoke again at the exact same moment.

"I love you Pa-Paul," Rose said again, this time louder.

"I love you too Lucy," James said, even louder than Rose and even more clearly.

"What?" Lucy and Paul both asked at the same time.

"Lucy I think someone's here. Stupefy!" Paul said forcefully in the direction of Rose and James.

"Did you get anything?" Lucy asked, jogging around to the same aisle as Paul. Both exits were now blocked and they were both holding their wands and looking alert. Neither Rose nor James had been hit by the spell (though the cloak would have protected them anyway).

"No. They might be under a cloak or have a spell on them," Paul said, moving forward, grabbing a book. For a moment Rose thought he was going to throw it, but he simply cast a spell on the pages causing the dust to fly off in the direction of the cloak. Rose looked back to Lucy who was smiling. Both were now moving directly for the cloak. There was no getting out of it now. James' eyes were narrowed with annoyance as Lucy pulled off the cloak.

"My own cousins," she practically growled, "Rose, I thought better of you," she said nothing similar to that to James.

"Do you want to go get your dad? And I'll meet you with these two in the empty classroom on the fifth floor?" Lucy asked. Paul agreed and headed off quickly. James and Rose both knew better than to run from her as she led them to the empty classroom.

"So, I know you two weren't sneaking about for, well, snogging. What were you doing in the library?" Lucy asked as they walked up the stairs.

"Studying," James said innocently.

"If you were studying, then I'm a squib," Lucy was not amused, "Rose?" she tried. Rose didn't even try and lie to Lucy. Instead she kept her mouth shut. They didn't speak the rest of the walk to the classroom. They stayed quiet as they waited for Professor Longbottom and Paul. It didn't take long for them to arrive.

"So, library after hours? I didn't expect that from you James. I would have guessed the forest," the Professor said, a hint of a smile on his face, though he remained serious. Lucy and Paul were sitting behind him, moderately interested to find out why they'd been there. "Well, what happened," Rose was looking at her feet. After a bit of silence, Paul began to explain what had happened.

"I nearly forgot – they were talking too. They had voice disguisers or something. It was strange. Like they wanted to be over heard," Paul added at the end of his story. Professor Neville looked confused, and turned back to Rose and James.

"Why were you out? Maybe if it's a good enough reason I'll knock a day or two off your detention," there was another long pause.

"We did it for love," Rose finally said. Neville, Paul and Lucy all looked horrified, "No, no, no! Not between me and James!" Rose added frantically.

"So James was helping you meet Scorpius in the library?" Lucy was confused.

"No…" James sighed, speaking again, looking embarrassed with the whole situation, "It's kind of a long story. I was in the library today, and I guess Louis was bored on the train at Christmas and made up this story about Lucy being madly in love with Paul and Rose believe it or something. So I was in the library and I decided to convince Rose to come out tonight to try and trick them into realizing their love of each other… because I bet Fred ten galleons that I could convince Rosie to break at least three school rules in one night…" James looked appropriately ashamed of himself.

"I see," Professor Neville said, contemplating the situation, "Lucy, Paul, why don't you guys go patrol some more. I think we'll be here a while longer," The pair got up reluctantly and left the room, looking back several times to Rose and James.

* * *

"My cousins are so weird," Lucy scowled as they walked up to the sixth floor to check out the hallways there.

"They certainly do have a knack for troublemaking," Paul added, nodding and agreeing with Lucy.

"Louis and then Rose and then Fred and James. Plus Albus is always… Albus. And then you've got Hugo. I swear they get weird the younger they are – Victoire, Teddy and Molly were never this weird," Lucy rolled her eyes.

"Yeah…" there was another long pause, "You don't love me, do you?" he asked quickly.

"Oh," Lucy stopped in place on the stairs, "Oh, well, I, I guess not. I never really thought about it. So, no," she said, "You don't love me, right?" she asked, trying (and failing) to force a laugh.

"Well, yeah. I mean, no. I hadn't really thought of it either. And yeah, I agree that I don't,"

"Yeah. Okay then. So… I'll take the closets on the right side of the hall?" Lucy asked and Paul nodded in agreement.

"Sure." they started walking again. After a long awkward silence as they checked nooks and crannies of closets and rooms Paul spoke again, "So what do you think Samantha has?" he asked.

"Cramps," Lucy said dully, "That or she's a werewolf," Lucy answered again.

"Probably cramps," Paul agreed. They didn't speak again for the rest of the evening. In fact, they didn't speak for the rest of the week. Slowly things got back to normal, but the next month when Lucy got a note from Samantha Irving claiming illness the duty of filling in was passed on to the 6th year Ravenclaw boy. The rest of the year was uneventful, and soon enough every seventh years life was consumed in studying for NEWTs. Indeed the last few months of school passed in the blink of an eye – a sleep deprived blink of an eye. Rose and James got away with three nights of detention with (much to Rose's happiness) the transfiguration teacher.

It wasn't long until it was graduation day at Hogwarts. Many students had left already, but Rose was being forced to sit with her family through the graduation of Louis, Lucy and Fred. During the reception afterwards she went to go speak to Lucy, but before she could Paul got there.

"Lucy – ready to go see McGonagall?" Paul asked.

"Yes!" Lucy agreed excitedly.

"Why are you seeing the Headmistress?" Rose asked, Lily showing up behind her.

"She's picked the new heads. We have to give our badges back to her so they can be shined up for next year," Lucy said brightly heading off with Paul.

"That's very sweet, isn't it?" Lily noted, hugging her sister from behind, "They pass the badges on! Oh, I so wish I could be a prefect next year,"

"Lily you've just finished your first year," Rose scowled.

"Yes, I know. Come on. Let's find Aunt Audrey. I want to tell her about my final charms exam!" Lily said, pulling her cousin towards Aunt Audrey, who was glowing with pride along with Uncle Percy.

* * *

"Hey Lucy, you know that thing Rose did earlier this year?" he asked.

"Do you mean the thing with us?" she asked, almost totally certain that was what Paul meant.

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it. And I don't love you. But," he paused, slowing down as they headed down the hallway leading to the Headmaster's office, "Well, I was thinking I might like you, and was wondering if you'd like to go for coffee sometime this summer?"

"I'd love that Paul," she said, and they started walking again, each with large smiles on their faces.

* * *

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